Monthly Archives: September 2009
Another year, another Berlin Marathon
Alena G.
When a country turns bad
Or makes a bad turn, I should say.
“The ink had barely dried after GM signed Opel over to Canadian car parts maker Magna and Russia’s Sberbank when they announced they would fire one-fifth of the group’s 50,000 European employees within a year – 4,000 in Germany.”
“Even a strong recovery would leave automakers with huge overcapacity. Against this background – which the sale of Opel does nothing to change – not admitting the necessity of job cuts is either delusional or dishonest to voters.”
“So when Germany’s government put up €4.5bn in loans and guarantees to ensure that Magna prevailed in GM’s garage sale, it presumably expected to get something in return.”
And that was…
“Magna co-chief executive Siegfried Wolf’s assurance that restructuring will be guided purely by commercial considerations is laughable when the group is accepting financing that depends on political decisions. The German money is a move in a negative-sum game of trying to push job cuts across the border.”
“We are naturally determined to resolve the remaining problems in a spirit of European equality.”
More German name problems
As you probably know, unless your name is Jihad, you can easily get discriminated against here in Germany. Especially here in grade school, or so I just read.
Sorry, that was a bit misleading about Jihad. There actually are a few other names that are still okay here too. A study just indicated that if your name is Sophie or Alexander or Maximilian or Katharina, for instance, German grade school teachers will treat you with a whole lot more respect than if your name is Justin, Chantal, Jaquelin or Marvin.
Or as one German teacher summed it up, involuntarily, when asked about one particular name: “Kevin is not a name, it’s a diagnosis.”
Funny, those names don’t sound all that funny to me. They almost sound, well, like American names. Hey, wait a minute…
“Eine Studie zeigt, dass Grundschulpädagogen Vorurteile gegen bestimmte Vornamen hegen – und manche Kinder deswegen sogar als besonders verhaltensauffällig einstufen.”
Berlin not nearly as sexy as it is poor
That’s right, Berlin is the capital, the capital when it comes to having the nation’s most welfare (Hartz IV) recipients.
Nearly 1 in 5 Berliners are receiving it.
“Berlin bleibt das Armenhaus Deutschlands”
So this is what you wanted?
Europe this, Europe that, but when it comes to jobs and number one… The main thing is that of the 10,500 people who are about to get fired at Opel 1) they won’t be getting fired by that awful American GM company (it will be Magna and Russia and Co. instead), and 2) most of those getting fired will be in Belgium and England.
Oh yeah, and now it comes out that tons of German government support money involved in “the deal” will be flowing off to Russia with love. The technology too, of course, but that’s another story.
“Dass etliche Jobs wegfallen war schon vorher klar, dass es so viele sein werden allerdings nicht.”
Deutsche debate dull, dubious, drab and dead
And it was auf Deutsch too.
“Twenty million people watched the TV debate, hoping to see a clear winner emerge after 90 minutes. But there was no real heated political debate from the two partners in Germany’s four-year-old grand coalition.”
Observing Hermann 